


Never Coming Home

by dear_monday



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, References to Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 19:38:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The suitcase Gerard's, and it's empty. Apart from a handful of balled-up receipts and chip packets and broken pencil leads, there's nothing in it.</p>
<p>Which means Gerard got on a flight to Japan with nothing but the clothes on his back and a pack of smokes in his pocket. Frank sits there on the bland beige carpet, wrestling with the implications. No matter how hard he tries to chalk it up to Gerard's flakiness or a bag that went missing at some point, he can't do it. The answer is obvious and unavoidable and awful.</p>
<p>Gerard didn't intend to make it home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> While this is based on something Gerard said in an interview, please note that various liberties have been taken with the canon.

Frank has stumbled every step of the way with Gerard, from the basement to the benders to ever more frequent mood swings that Frank feels under his own skin like a quickening heartbeat. Frank has seen him cry, he's held Gerard's hair back while he retched, he's seen the feverish light in his eyes when he's possessed by an idea. So Gerard leans too heavily on the booze and the drugs; so what? Everyone has their vices, and Frank's done more than his fair share of the same shit.

Besides, Gerard is a genius. Frank figures being a little fucked up sort of goes with the territory.

Frank has been laughing it off for the last two years. They're young dudes in a band, for fuck's sake, it's practically expected of them. They could just keep on going forever, losing themselves in chemicals and music without ever growing old or dying.

Frank knows, really, that that isn't how things work. But, somehow, sitting here in this anonymous hotel room with Gerard's empty suitcase in front of him, it's suddenly sickeningly, gut-wrenchingly true. Frank has been sitting with his head in his hands in front of the accusing suitcase for almost an hour now, struggling to hold himself together.

Gerard is sleeping like a baby in one of the twin beds, his hair damp and tangled, wearing only a pair of Frank's boxers. Mikey and Ray, both haggard and exhausted, are sharing the room next door, and Brian is already on a redeye flight to Tokyo. Gerard's stage clothes are hanging up in the bathroom, still stained and dripping forlornly. Frank washed them himself in the bathtub when Gerard passed out, sluicing the mucky, reeking water down the drain with Gerard's slurred, cracked promise that he'd be clean and sober from now until forever ringing in his ears.

After that, Frank dragged himself out of the bathroom, rubbing his sore, gritty eyes, feeling wrung out and drained, and that was when he'd found the suitcase. It's Gerard's, and it's empty. Apart from a handful of balled-up receipts and chip packets and broken pencil leads, there's nothing in it.

Which means Gerard got on a flight to Japan with nothing but the clothes on his back and a pack of smokes in his pocket. Frank sits there on the bland beige carpet, wrestling with the implications. No matter how hard he tries to chalk it up to Gerard's flakiness or a bag that went missing at some point, he can't do it. The answer is obvious and unavoidable and awful.

Gerard didn't intend to make it home.

 

*

 

Frank doesn't move from that spot, even when his back starts to ache and his legs start to cramp. He's still grasping and struggling like a man lost at sea to understand. Gerard has been dragged kicking and screaming to hell and back by the demons in his own head, Frank knows he hasn't exactly been happy lately, but this is an H-bomb of a surprise. Frank feels sick and guilty,  as if there was something he should have done. Gerard is brilliant in more ways than Frank could ever count. He'd be so _missed_.

Frank knows it's not his life, not his choice, but his heart is screaming, _no. You don't get to die at twenty-fucking-six with everything to live for, I won't let you. It isn't fair. I need you. We all do_.

Almost as if he knows what Frank's thinking, Gerard stirs and groans. Frank's head jerks up, and Gerard cracks open an eye.

"Morning, sunshine," Frank says softly, his gut twisting. He doesn't know what time it is; maybe three or four. His piece-of-shit watch broke when he yanked it off and threw it away earlier, and he couldn't give a shit.

"Blood and hellfire," Gerard mumbles indistinctly. "Motherfucking-- oh, god, my _head_." He opens his other eye, fixing them both pleadingly on Frank. "You got any... any Oxycontin?"

"Fuck off," says Frank, more sharply than he meant to. "If you seriously think--"

"Okay, _okay_ ," Gerard moans. "C'mon, Frank, everything fucking _hurts_."

"Are you fucking _kidding_ me?" Frank snaps, sitting up and staring incredulously at Gerard.

"Don't be mad at me," whines Gerard, closing his eyes again and curling in on himself. "Frank, please..."

"Sorry," Frank says, more quietly. He stands, wincing as his knees click and his spine creaks. Slowly, he crosses the room and sits back down on the edge of the bed. "Gerard, I found your suitcase."

Frank was expecting him to shut down like he usually does when someone tries to make him talk about something he doesn't want to, but he doesn't, and that's somehow even worse. He looks defeated, as if there's just no fight left in him anymore.

"Yeah," Gerard says, his voice barely a whisper, and Frank realizes as it's extinguished that he'd been carrying the faint hope that he'd been wrong. Gerard looks so weak, with deep, bruise-colored rings of shadow around his eyes, as boneless as a ragdoll. Frank shifts a little closer.

"Gee, what..." he starts, then swallows. "Why--"

"It hurt," Gerard says simply, as if he's telling Frank that it's raining outside. "And I wanted it to stop."

"But you should've told us it had gotten this bad! We could've... I don't know, we could have helped!"

Gerard blinks at him. "I didn't want to be helped," he says quietly, and Frank feels the words like a punch in the gut. "I wanted it to be over."

Distantly, Frank feels his eyes prickling warningly just before the first tears escape. He  scrubs them away.

"Aw, fuck, don't... don't cry," Gerard says wretchedly, looking away. "I didn't-- you guys are my fucking family, you know? I'd have been dead years ago if it wasn't for you. I wasn't doing it to hurt you guys. You would have gotten over it."

"But we wouldn't!" Frank says fiercely, grabbing Gerard's clammy hand. "Gee, we wouldn't have _gotten over it_. Without you, Ray goes back to wasting his life on the drums, Brian goes back to kicking no-hoper bands around the country, Otter goes back to _playing_ in those shitty bands, I end up as some washed up wannabe punk, and Mikey..." Frank trails off, unable even to imagine. "I'm not blaming you or trying to make you feel bad," he says, more gently. "Just... you matter. You have to see that."

Gerard looks up at him for a long moment, like he doesn't quite dare to let himself believe that Frank means it. "Really?"

"Really," Frank says, without a moment's hesitation. "Seriously. You're gonna get better and you're gonna do all the shit you always wanted to do. You're gonna write that comic you've been talking about since forever, you're gonna learn to play fucking Sweet Home Alabama, we're gonna be the best motherfucking band in the world and you're gonna be glad you stuck it out."

Gerard cracks a thin, watery smile. "Yeah?"

"Guaranteed. Or your money back."

Gerard rolls his eyes and huffs out the shadow of a laugh, and silence falls again.

"Thanks," he says eventually, in a voice so low it's barely there at all. "It means a lot. I guess I haven't really said it, but... yeah. All of you."

"So do it for us, yeah?" Frank says, squeezing Gerard's hand, and he nods. "Go back to sleep. You've got a shitty couple of weeks ahead."

Gerard closes his eyes obediently, and Frank allows his fingers to linger a little too long over the pulse throbbing defiantly in Gerard's pale wrist. _Alive. Alive. Alive._


End file.
